Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17)

by Maurice Leblanc

  He was therefore allowed to have the keys of the amphitheatre and went in alone, or with labourers upon whom he kept an eye, replacing them by fresh gangs so as to avoid plots and machinations. He often went to Paris, throwing off the scent of the detectives who dogged his movements, and returned with bottles and cans carefully wrapped up.

  On the day before that fixed for the inauguration, the police were no wiser than on the first day in matters concerning the man Massignac, or Velmot’s hiding-place, or the murderer’s, or Bérangère’s. The same ignorance prevailed regarding Noël Dorgeroux’s secret, the circumstances of his death and the ambiguous words which he had scribbled on the plaster of the wall. As for the miraculous visions which I have described, they were denied or accepted as vigorously and as unreasonably by both the disputing parties. In short, nobody knew anything.

  And this perhaps was the reason why the thousand seats in the amphitheatre were sold out within a few hours. Priced at a hundred francs apiece, they were bought up by half-a-dozen speculators who got rid of them at two or three times their original cost. How delighted my poor uncle would have been had he lived to see it!

  The night before the fourteenth of May, I slept very badly, haunted by nightmares that kept on waking me with a start. At the first glimmer of dawn, I was sitting on the side of my bed when, in the deep silence, which was barely broken by the twittering of a few birds, I seemed to hear the sound of a key in a lock and a door creaking on its hinges.

  I must explain that, since my uncle’s death, I had been sleeping next to the room that used to be his. Now the noise came from that room, from which I was separated only by a glazed door covered with a chintz curtain. I listened and heard the sound of a chair moved from its place. There was certainly some one in the next room; and this some one, obviously unaware that I occupied the adjoining chamber, was taking scarcely any precautions. But how had he got in?

  I sprang from the bed, slipped on my trousers, took up a revolver and drew aside a corner of the curtain. At first, the shutters were closed and the room in darkness and I saw only an indistinct shadow. Then the window was opened softly. Somebody lifted the iron bar and pushed back the shutters, thus admitting the light.

  I now saw a woman return to the middle of the room. She was draped from head to foot in a brown stuff cloak. Nevertheless I knew her at once. It was Bérangère.

  I had a feeling not so much of amazement as of sudden and profound pity at the sight of her emaciated face, her poor face, once so bright and eager, now so sad and wan. I did not even think of rejoicing at the fact of her being alive, nor did I ask myself what clandestine business had brought her back to the Lodge. The one thing that held me captive was the painful spectacle of her pallid face, with its feverish, burning eyes and blue eyelids. Her cloak betrayed the shrunken figure beneath it.

  Her heart must have been beating terribly, for she held her two hands to her breast to suppress its throbbing. She even had to lean on the edge of the table. She staggered and nearly fell. Poor Bérangère. I felt anguish-stricken as I watched her.

  She pulled herself together, however, and looked around her. Then, with a tottering gait, she went to the mantelpiece, where two old engravings, framed in black with a gold beading, hung one on either side of the looking-glass. She climbed on a chair and took down the one on the right, a portrait of D’Alembert.

  Stepping down from the chair, she examined the back of the frame, which was closed by a piece of old card-board the edges of which were fastened to the sides of the frame by strips of gummed cloth. Bérangère cut these strips with a pen-knife, bending back the tacks which held the cardboard in position. It came out of the frame; and I then saw — Bérangère had her back turned in my direction, so that not a detail escaped me — I then saw that there was inserted between the cardboard and the engraving a large sheet of paper covered with my uncle’s writing.

  At the top, in red ink, was a drawing of the three geometrical eyes.

  Next came the following words, in bold black capitals:

  “Instructions for working my discovery, abridged from the manuscript sent to my nephew.”

  And next forty or fifty very closely-written lines, in a hand too small to allow me to decipher them.

  Besides, I had not the time. Bérangère merely glanced at the paper. Having found the object of her search and obtained possession of an additional document which my uncle had provided in case the manuscript should be lost, she folded it up, slipped it into her bodice, replaced the cardboard and hung the engraving where she had found it.

  Was she going away? If so, she was bound to return as she had come, that is to say, evidently, through Noël Dorgeroux’s dressing-room, on the other side of the bedroom, of which she had left the communicating-door ajar. I was about to prevent her and had already taken hold of the door-handle, when suddenly she moved a few steps towards my uncle’s bed and fell on her knees, stretching out her hands in despair.

  Her sobs rose in the silence. She stammered words which I was able to catch:

  “God-father! . . . My poor god-father!”

  And she passionately kissed the coverlet of the bed beside which she must often have sat up watching my uncle when he was ill.

  Her fit of crying lasted a long time and did not cease until just as I entered. Then she turned her head, saw me and stood up slowly, without taking her eyes from my face:

  “You!” she murmured. “It’s you!”

  Seeing her make for the door, I said:

  “Don’t go, Bérangère.”

  She stopped, looking paler than ever, with drawn features.

  “Give me that sheet of paper,” I said, in a voice of command.

  She handed it to me, with a quick movement. After a brief pause, I continued:

  “Why did you come to fetch it? My uncle told you of its existence, didn’t he? And you . . . you were taking it to my uncle’s murderers, so that they might have nothing more to fear and be the only persons to know the secret? . . . Speak, Bérangère, will you?”

  I had raised my voice and was advancing towards her. She took another step back.

  “You shan’t move, do you hear? Stay where you are. Listen to me and answer me!”

  She made no further attempt to move. Her eyes were filled with such distress that I adopted a calmer demeanour:

  “Answer me,” I said, very gently. “You know that, whatever you may have done, I am your friend, your indulgent friend, and that I mean to help you . . . and advise you. There are feelings which are proof against everything. Mine for you is of that sort. It is more than affection: you know it is, don’t you, Bérangère? You know that I love you?”

  Her lips quivered, she tried to speak, but could not. I repeated again and again:

  “I love you! . . . I love you!”

  And, each time, she shuddered, as though these words, which I spoke with infinite emotion, which I had never spoken so seriously or so sincerely, as if these words wounded her in the very depths of her soul. What a strange creature she was!

  I tried to put my hand on her shoulder. She avoided my friendly touch.

  “What can you see to fear in me,” I asked, “when I love you? Why not confess everything? You are not a free agent, are you? You are being forced to act as you do and you hate it all?”

  Once more, anger was overmastering me. I was exasperated by her silence. I saw no way of compelling her to reply, of overcoming that incomprehensible obstinacy except by clasping her in my arms and yielding to the instinct of violence which urged me towards some brutal action.

  I went boldly forward. But I had not taken a step before she spun round on her heel, so swiftly that I thought that she would drop to the floor in the doorway. I followed her into the other room. She uttered a terrible scream. At the same moment I was knocked down by a sudden blow. The man Massignac, who had been hiding in the dressing-room and watching us, had leapt at me and was attacking me furiously, while Bérangère fled to the staircase.

  “Your d
aughter,” I spluttered, defending myself, “your daughter! . . . Stop her! . . .”

  The words were senseless, seeing that Massignac, beyond a doubt, was Bérangère’s accomplice, or rather an inspiring force behind her, as indeed he proved by his determination to put me out of action, in order to protect his daughter against my pursuit.

  We had rolled over the carpet and each of us was trying to master his adversary. The man Massignac was no longer laughing. He was striking harder blows than ever, but without using any weapon and without any murderous intent. I hit back as lustily and soon discovered that I was getting the better of him.

  This gave me additional strength. I succeeded in flattening him beneath me. He stiffened every muscle to no purpose. We lay clutching each other, face to face, eye to eye. I took him by the throat and snarled:

  “Ah, I shall get it out of you now, you wretch, and learn at last . . .”

  And suddenly I ceased. My words broke off in a cry of horror and I clapped my hand to his face in such a way as to hide the lower part of it, leaving only the eyes visible. Oh, those eyes riveted on mine! Why, I knew them! Not with their customary expression of smug and hypocritical cheerfulness, but with the other expression which I was slowly beginning to remember. Yes, I remember them now, those two fierce, implacable eyes, filled with hatred and cruelty, those eyes which I had seen on the wall of the chapel, those eyes which had looked at me on that same day, when I lay gasping in the murderer’s grip in the woods near the Yard.

  And again, as on that occasion, suddenly my strength forsook me. Those savage eyes, those atrocious eyes, the man Massignac’s real eyes, alarmed me.

  He released himself with a laugh of triumph and, speaking in calm and deliberate accents, said:

  “You’re no match for me, young fellow! Don’t you come meddling in my affairs again!”

  Then, pushing me away, he ran off in the same direction as Bérangère.

  A few minutes later, I perceived that the sheet of paper which the daughter had found behind the old engraving had been taken from me by the father; and then, but not till then, I understood the exact meaning of the attack.

  The amphitheatre was duly inaugurated on the afternoon of that same day. Seated in the box-office was the manager of the establishment, the possessor of the great secret, Théodore Massignac, Noël Dorgeroux’s murderer.

  CHAPTER X. THE CROWD SEES

  THÉODORE MASSIGNAC WAS installed at the box-office! Théodore Massignac, when a dispute of any kind occurred, left his desk and hastened to settle it! Théodore Massignac walked up and down, examining the tickets, showing people to their places, speaking a pleasant word here, giving a masterful order there and doing all these things with his everlasting smile and his obsequious graciousness.

  Of embarrassment not the slightest sign. Everybody knew that Théodore Massignac was the fellow with the broad face and the wide-cleft mouth who was attracting the general attention. And everybody was fully aware that Théodore Massignac was the man of straw who had carried out the whole business and made away with Noël Dorgeroux. But nothing interfered with Théodore Massignac’s jovial mood: not the sneers, nor the apparent hostility of the public, nor the more or less discreet supervision of the detectives attached to his person.

  He had even had the effrontery to paste on boardings, to the right and left of the entrance, a pair of great posters representing Noël Dorgeroux’s handsome face, with its grave and candid features!

  These posters gave rise to a brief altercation between us. It was pretty lively, though it passed unnoticed by others. Scandalized by the sight of them, I went up to him, a little while before the time fixed for the opening; and, in a voice trembling with anger, said:

  “Remove those at once. I will not have them displayed. The rest I don’t care about. But this is too much of a good thing: it’s a disgrace and an outrage.”

  He feigned an air of amazement:

  “An outrage? You call it an outrage to honour your uncle’s memory and to display the portrait of the talented inventor whose discovery is on the point of revolutionizing the world? I thought I was doing homage to him.”

  I was beside myself with rage:

  “You shan’t do it,” I spluttered. “I will not consent, I will not consent to be an accomplice in your infamy.”

  “Oh, yes, you will!” he said, with a laugh. “You’ll consent to this as you do to all the rest. It’s all part of the game, young fellow. You’ve got to swallow it. You’ve got to swallow it because Uncle Dorgeroux’s fame must be made to soar above all these paltry trifles. Of course, I know, a word from you and I’m jugged. And then? What will become of the great invention? In the soup, that’s where it’ll be, my lad, because I am the sole possessor of all the secrets and all the formulae. The sole possessor, do you understand? Friend Velmot, the man with the glasses, is only a super, a tool. So is Bérangère. Therefore, with Théodore Massignac put away, there’s an end of the astounding pictures signed ‘Dorgeroux.’ No more glory, no more immortality. Is that what you want, young man?”

  Without waiting for any reply, he added:

  “And then there’s something else; a word or two which I overheard last night. Ha, ha, my dear sir, so we’re in love with Bérangère! We’re prepared to defend her against all dangers! Well, in that case — do be logical — what have I to fear? If you betray me, you betray your sweetheart. Come, am I right or wrong? Daddy and his little girl . . . hand and glove, you might say. If you cut off one, what becomes of the other? . . . Ah, you’re beginning to understand! You’ll be good now, won’t you? There, that’s much better! We shall see a happy ending yet, you’ll have heaps of children crowding round your knee and who will thank me then for getting him a nice little settlement? Why, Victorien!”

  He stopped and watched me, with a jeering air. Clenching my fists, I shouted, furiously:

  “You villain! . . . Oh, what a villain you make yourself appear!”

  But some people were coming up and he turned his back on me, after whispering:

  “Hush, Victorien! Don’t insult your father-in-law elect.”

  I restrained myself. The horrible brute was right. I was condemned to silence by motives so powerful that Théodore Massignac would soon be able to fulfil his task without having to fear the least revolt of conscience on my part. Noël Dorgeroux and Bérangère were watching over him.

  Meanwhile, the amphitheatre was filling; and the motorcars continued to arrive in swift succession, pouring forth the torrent of privileged people who, because of their wealth or their position, had paid from ten to twenty louis for a seat. Financiers, millionaires, famous actresses, newspaper-proprietors, artistic and literary celebrities, Anglo-Saxon commercial magnates, secretaries of great labour unions, all flocked with a sort of fever towards that unknown spectacle, of which no detailed programme was obtainable and which they were not even certain of beholding, since it was impossible to say whether Noël Dorgeroux’s processes had really been recovered and employed in the right way. Indeed, no one, among those who believed the story, was in a position to declare that Théodore Massignac had not taken advantage of the whole business in order to arrange the most elaborate hoax. The very tickets and posters contained the anything but reassuring words:

  “In the event of unfavourable weather, the tickets will be available for the following day. Should the exhibition be prevented by any other cause, the money paid for the seats will not be refunded; and no claims to that effect can be entertained.”

  Yet nothing had restrained the tremendous outburst of curiosity. Whether confident or suspicious, people insisted on being there. Besides, the weather was fine. The sun shone out of a cloudless sky. Why not indulge in the somewhat anxious gaiety that filled the hearts of the crowd?

  Everything was ready. Thanks to his wonderful activity and his remarkable powers of organization, Théodore Massignac, assisted by architects and contractors and acting on the plans worked out, had completed and revised Noël Dorgeroux’s work. He h
ad recruited a numerous staff, especially a large and stalwart body of men, who, as I heard, were lavishly paid and who were charged with the duty of keeping order.

  As for the amphitheatre, built of reinforced concrete, it was completely filled up, well laid out and very comfortable. Twelve rows of elbowed seats, supplied with movable cushions, surrounded a floor which rose in a gentle slope, divided into twelve tiers arranged in a wide semicircle. Behind these was a series of spacious private boxes, and, at the back of all, a lounge, the floor of which, nevertheless, was not more than ten or twelve feet above the level of the ground.

  Opposite was the wall.

  It stood well away from the seats, being built on a foundation of masonry and separated from the spectators by an empty orchestra. Furthermore, a grating, six feet high, prevented access to the wall, at least as regards its central portion; and, when I say a grating, I mean a businesslike grating, with spiked rails and cross-bars forming too close a mesh to allow of the passage of a man’s arm.

  The central part was the screen, which was raised to about the level of the fourth or fifth tier of seats. Two pilasters, standing at eight or ten yards’ distance from each other, marked its boundaries and supported an overhanging canopy. For the moment, all this space was masked by an iron curtain, roughly daubed with gaudy landscapes and ill-drawn views.

  At half-past three there was not a vacant seat nor an unoccupied corner. The police had ordered the doors to be closed. The crowd was beginning to grow impatient and to give signs of a certain irritability, which betrayed itself in the hum of a thousand voices, in nervous laughter and in jests which were becoming more and more caustic.